After eight o’clock, a large reed island appeared on our left. Floating couch-grass islands, covered with the pale green aquatic plants so frequently seen, meet us, and often draw a ship round with them. The current of the water may separate these islands from the shore, and disconnect them from the lake; or storms, and the mighty inhabitants of the stream, when they are forcing roads with their corporeal masses, may cut them off and set them in motion. At ten o’clock, for the first time, on the right shore, Sunt appears on an island with all kinds of shrubs and grasses, and the aquatic acacia Ambak. The country on the banks of the Nile consist of, at the same time, a broad pasture-land, with young high grass, whilst the breadth of the river here is an hour. Towards the South an endless channel disclosed itself, in which the water vanished by degrees with the horizon,—a sight which we had not yet seen on the white stream, and which was very much desired to define the latitude and longitude. On the left, also, approached an island with the before-named characteristics. I conclude, however, from the height of some Sunt-trees, that it had firmer ground towards the interior, although its beautiful flowering margin displays, as it were, floating hills of flowers over the copsewood, with their tendrils and grasses. At eleven o’clock, the log gave four miles and a half, and at twelve o’clock we were obliged, from want of wind, to lay-to at an Ambak-island. The wind returned, however, after a short time, and we sailed through a sea of green grass or reeds, where we saw over the extensive gently rising right shore a large city of the Dinkas, though we were not able to approach, owing to the reeds.